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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25717492">Whenever You Want to Begin, Begin</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/foramomentonly/pseuds/foramomentonly'>foramomentonly</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Want You To Love Me [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Malex, Past Miluca, Pro-Maria, This Author Love Maria DeLuca</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:33:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,251</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25717492</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/foramomentonly/pseuds/foramomentonly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex is right, of course; Maria and Michael’s relationship crumbles under the strain of meaning too much to Michael—of meaning everything—while never actually being enough.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Michael Guerin/Alex Manes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Want You To Love Me [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865350</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>169</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Whenever You Want to Begin, Begin</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Ohmygod, this was a nightmare. I hope it was worth the wait!</p><p>Title from Fiona Apple's "I Want You to Love Me."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alex is right, of course; Maria and Michael’s relationship crumbles under the strain of meaning too much to Michael—of meaning everything—while never actually being <em> enough </em>. Maria is upset, betrayed, and she bans Michael from the Pony with sincerity, tears in her eyes she's too stubborn to let fall.</p><p>"Not forever," she assures him, gracious even as he's breaking her heart, has been in agonizing measures for months, since this all started. "I'm not an idiot, Guerin. Some of this is on me."</p><p>"Not much," he mumbles, miserable.</p><p>"No," she agrees, drawing her shoulders back, her chin up, and gifting him with a small smirk. "Very, very little."</p><p>Her ban is more of a request for space and time to heal than it is a vindictive act. Michael loves her for it, wishes he could have figured out how to use that love to fulfill her, instead of using it to fill the gaping holes in himself. She’s true to her word, and after a long month she invites him back to the bar and pours him a generous shot on the house.</p><p>“Only one you’re ever getting,” she warns him, and pours herself an even bigger one. </p><p>“To new beginnings,” she says, raising her glass, and there’s a challenge in her warm and knowing eyes. Michael quickly realizes he’s not fooling anyone, least of all Maria DeLuca.</p><p>Because it’s Alex. It’s always been Alex, even when it wasn't, even when Michael desperately didn’t want it to be, for both their sakes. He knows it now, or at least has the guts to admit it, but he still doesn't have a fucking clue what to <em> do </em> with it. Alex is still "talking" to Forrest, anyway, occasionally arriving to a group meet-up at the Pony or the Crashdown from the wrong direction, a little flustered when asked where he's coming from. So Michael lays low, works on building a relationship with Alex not balanced precariously on the epic, cosmic connection that kept them colliding for so many volatile years, but one rooted in stability and stillness. They share anecdotes from their days over the engine of Alex’s Jeep when he brings it by for an inspection; trade light gossip about Max and Liz’s first epic blowout when they run into each other at the hardware store; and they slowly work their way up to scheduled outings for beers or coffee and to sending casual, non sequitur texts. Almost like friends. They grow comfortable occupying each other’s space not under the guise of work or fueled by passion or confrontation, but simply because they crave proximity; because they want to. </p><hr/><p>Michael's using his "juice," as Sanders calls it, to move some scrap metal at the junkyard when he finds—almost steps on—an older model DSLR camera. It's clearly been well used and it's busted, but if Michael's genius is gonna be bested by an overpriced gadget some Roswell soccer mom probably used to take Photoshopped vacation pics for the Gram, well. Better to take that hit now, when the stakes are low. He fixes it in two hours, replaces the memory card for cheap, and tries to gift it to Isobel, who laughs in his face.</p><p>"Oh, Michael," she says, "that thing is at <em> least </em> five years and a few models old. But call me if you find one of those vintage SLR numbers. They’re great for staging and Bean Me Up just hired me to do a big social media rebrand."</p><p>Michael sighs.</p><p>"Think I could sell it?" he asks, but Isobel shakes her head, eyeing the scratches and residue from what was probably some kind of sticker or decal.</p><p>"It’s barely worth the price of the memory card at this point. Why don't you keep it?" she suggests, voice teasing, perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched. "You're such a fan of photography.</p><p>She smirks at him and he glares. </p><hr/><p>He does keep it, though, and starts taking pictures almost as an afterthought. First, it’s at one of Maria’s markets; he’s always loved the bright colors and delicate patterns of the <em> papel picado </em>strung above the lot and across the various booths and tents. Then he snaps candids throughout the afternoon at a backyard barbeque Max and Liz host the weekend after they officially move in together. He captures Isobel looking chic and windswept behind oversized sunglasses; Alex and Maria with their dark heads close together, Maria perched on his lap and laughing; even Max, hair damp with sweat and curly, grinning like an idiot at an out-of-focus Liz in the background, swaying her hips tipsily to the cumbia she’s interrupted Alex’s throwback playlist to blast through Max’s smart speaker. Eventually, Michael works up to shooting at the Pony’s Open Mic Night, poised behind his camera for Alex’s full performance. Alex quirks a brow at him, but doesn’t break or falter so much as a note, holding Michael’s gaze behind the lens for the rest of his song. Afterwards, he slides Michael a drink across the table where he’s hunched over his camera, scrolling through the images he’s captured and muttering darkly under his breath.</p><p>“I hope you got my good side,” Alex quips, dropping into the chair next to Michael and taking a long sip of his whiskey.</p><p>“You got a bad one?” Michael drawls in return, and Alex laughs.</p><p>“Can I see?” he asks, motioning to the camera’s little screen.</p><p>“They’re too dark,” Michael grumbles, though he angles the screen toward Alex, watching him intently as he leans in close to squint at the images. “Can’t see shit.”</p><p>Alex hums, looks around at the Pony’s low lighting and dark wood.</p><p>“Not the best light in here,” he concedes.</p><p>“Thanks for this,” Michael says, holding up the glass Alex passed him before bringing it to his lips. “You sure Forrest won’t mind you buying another guy a drink?”</p><p>He’s brazenly fishing for information, and Alex cocks his head to the side, watches Michael catch a drop of the amber liquid threatening to drip down his bottom lip with a quick swipe of tongue.</p><p>“We’re not really talking much these days,” he admits, dark eyes observing Michael as he takes in Alex’s answer.</p><p>“Is that so?” Michael finally asks, leaning back in his chair. It’s a struggle to keep his voice light, his tone neutral.</p><p>Alex holds him still with a direct and steady gaze. The moment feels on the verge of <em> before </em> and <em> after </em>, and Michael wonders if it will be himself or Alex who pushes them into their inevitable future.</p><p>“You know,” Alex finally says, and time lurches forward again, “there are probably photography classes you could take. Learn how to work with difficult lighting and all that. You should look into it.”</p><p>He stands slowly, drink in hand, and offers Michael a small smile before he heads towards the bar. </p><p>Michael knows those classes exist, of course, and knows that he could never afford them; even the ones at the Roswell Community Arts Center are $150 easy, excluding film. And he knows <em> Alex </em> knows. Which is why on his birthday the next month he isn’t surprised to find an envelope taped to his door with a printed confirmation of Michael’s Guerin’s registration for Digital Photography for New Artists and a note in Alex’s loopy scrawl: <em> Make me look good, Guerin. </em> Michael accepts the gift in silence and hopes Alex takes it to mean he’s willing to accept everything, accept <em> Alex </em>, should he feel generous enough to offer himself again.</p><hr/><p> Alex stops by early one morning to pass off some old files Michael asked for; he stays for coffee. He looks a little comical perched atop Michael’s counter in the Airstream, idly sipping from a wide mug and holding an old schematic sketch up to the light, squinting. His broad shoulders are pressed against the cabinets, narrow hips barely settled on the countertop, and his long legs dangle nearly to the floor. Michael picks up his camera and slides back on his bed, pressing himself against the back wall of the trailer. He lifts the camera, focuses, and clicks, grinning as he captures Alex with the tiniest sliver of pink tongue between his teeth. Alex turns his head, looking a little lost, but smiles.</p><p>Do you mind?” Michael asks. “It’s for an assignment.”</p><p>“Sure,” Alex says, and with a hint of mischief adds, “How do you want me?”</p><p>Michael licks his lips.</p><p>“Just like that,” he says, clears his throat when his voice comes out husky.</p><p>Alex sets down his mug and Michael’s sketch, the thin paper fluttering to the ground, and braces his hands on the countertop, hoisting his hips up off the counter briefly and repositioning himself directly in Michael’s line of sight.</p><p>“Leave the mug,” Michael directs. “Just be natural.”</p><p>He captures a series of shots as Alex looks off to the side, drops his head and smiles up at Michael’s lens through his lashes, and finally tilts his head back, scratching with long fingers at a lingering 5 o’clock shadow; he must not have had time to shave.</p><p>“What’s the assignment?” Alex asks.</p><p>And Michael replies honestly, “Finding beauty in the domestic,” before he really thinks about what he’s saying.</p><p>Alex’s lips curl into an amused smile.</p><p>“So, is lounging on the counter letting your coffee get cold a common domestic occurrence for you?”</p><p>Michael laughs, drawls, “Oh, sure. But, you know me, I’m usually shirtless.”</p><p>Alex stares down his lens, dark eyes unreadable, and easily pulls his shirt over his head, tossing it on the floor in front of him. He shifts impossibly closer to the edge of the countertop and spreads his legs, affecting Michael’s wide, lazy sprawl. And when Michael lowers his camera slowly, eyes catching on a flash of fire engine red fabric peeking out of the waistband of Alex’s jeans, Alex deliberately pulls the briefs higher on his hip, exposing more of the bright, bold color.</p><p>Michael’s breath catches. He thinks he knows, he can dare to hope what’s happening here, but he’s afraid to push it and cross a boundary with Alex that he can’t step back from. Alex is gazing at him openly and quirks an eyebrow when Michael looks directly into his eyes.</p><p>“This more natural?” Alex breathes.</p><p>Michael clears his throat again and opens his mouth to speak. Who is he kidding? He’s always going to take the chance. He’s always gonna risk it all for the promise of <em> Alex </em>.</p><p>“Actually, I’d be in my underwear,” he offers. “You know I run hot.”</p><p>Holding his breath, Michael watches Alex slide off the counter, unbutton his jeans and push them carefully down his legs, toeing off his shoes and sock in the process. He pushes the pile of clothes to the side with his left foot and stands before Michael for an endless moment, letting him drink his fill. The boxer briefs he’s wearing are smaller than Michael is used to; closer in style to the boy shorts Maria sometimes wore to bed, and Michael is treated to what feels like miles of Alex’s body, hard muscle and bone under smooth skin and sparse hair. His briefs sit low on his waist, exposing the sharp jut of his hipbones, and their rich color accentuates Alex’s tan skin. Michael works his way up Alex’s body slowly, unashamed, and when he meets Alex’s eyes, Alex gives him a knowing smirk and lifts himself back up onto the counter, leaning forward this time with his hands braced on the countertop on either side of his knees.</p><p>“Can I?” Michael whispers into the hush of the trailer, afraid the wrong volume or tone might break the heady spell between them. He lifts his camera again, points it toward the sleek metal of Alex’s prosthesis. “All of you?”</p><p>Alex knocks it softly against the front of Michael’s mini-fridge and nods, breathes, “Go ahead.” </p><p>He can’t turn these photos in for his class; they both know it at this point. The size of Alex’s briefs, the way he leers at the camera, eyes focused and practically burning a hole through Michael’s lens, through his heart; it’s indecent, not fit to hang next to Ms. Garza’s garden scenes or Kelsey’s shots of her daughters on the playground. <em> They don’t deserve the privilege, </em> Michael thinks, snapping photo after photo in a kind of trance, trying to capture the feeling of loving Alex Manes, of the desire that creeps up his throat and suffocates him, stealing the air from his lungs and replacing it with the smell of Alex’s sweat, filling his mouth with Alex’s name until it spills softly out, unbidden.</p><p>“<em> Alex </em>.”</p><p>Alex looks up at him slowly, a small smile on his lips. </p><p>“Come ‘ere.”</p><p>Michael is off the bed before he fully processes Alex's words, shoving his camera as far back on the countertop as it will go as he steps between Alex’s open legs, hands sliding up his thighs as Alex’s fingers tangle in his hair. They’re frozen that way for several aching minutes, passing ragged breaths back and forth, bending time to their will, refusing to pass from this moment into the next.</p><p>“Alex,” he breathes again, voice trembling as a tear slides down his cheek.</p><p>Alex brushes the wetness from Michael’s face, shushing him quietly.</p><p>“Don’t cry,” he pleads, but his voice is too deep, unsteady, and his own eyes gleam wetly.</p><p>Michael isn’t sure who closes the distance between them; it doesn’t fucking matter. All he knows is the heat of Alex’s body as he arches his back, pressing the length of his torso against Michael and wrapping his legs around Michael’s waist. All he registers is the wet slide of Alex’s lips on his, Alex’s tongue in his mouth. All he wants is to take; to slide his hands beneath Alex’s thighs, lift him tight and secure in his arms, and lay him out reverently on his own messy bed, claiming him again in the most thorough and intimate way he knows. And it’s exactly what he does.</p><hr/><p>There's a showcase at the arts center when Michael's class comes to an end, and he asks Alex to be his date. The fact that Alex ends up spending the night <em> before </em> the event in Michael's bed is irrelevant; he figures it's, as Isobel would say, “on brand" for them.</p><p>"<em> Don't </em>," Alex groans, but there's laughter in his voice, muffled as it is from his position on the small bed; he's sprawled out naked on his stomach, one arm dangling over the side, leg tangled in the thin sheet at the end of the mattress, and his face buried in a pillow. </p><p>Michael ignores him and continues kissing a slow path down the broad expanse of Alex's back from where he lays, still half on top of Alex with one long leg resting between Alex’s thighs and an arm wrapped loosely around his waist.</p><p>"What?" Michael murmurs innocently into Alex's skin. "We're making up for lost time here."</p><p>Alex lifts his head, looks over his shoulder.</p><p>"Is <em> that </em> what we're doing?" he asks, his tone lilting and playful.</p><p>"Mhmm," Michael hums, lips pressed into the dimple of Alex's low back. He raises his eyes slowly, shaking his head in a failed attempt to toss a curl off his forehead, and smiles up at Alex. "And tomorrow night we start fresh."</p><p>Alex’s face breaks open, dark eyes bright and a grin that’s all teeth. He looks young and mischievous and so fucking <em> happy </em> in a way that threatens to bring a wet lump to Michael’s throat. Michael falls out of time staring up at him, cataloging the creases around Alex’s mouth and at the corners of both eyes, the flush of his skin and the light indentations on his cheek from the pillow; evidence of a love that is filling him up rather than breaking him down. Michael’s brought back into the moment by the sound of Alex’s voice calling his name around a laugh and the quick snap of Alex’s fingers in his face.</p><p>“Take a picture,” Alex teases, “it’ll last longer.” </p><p>“Don’t tempt me,” Michael murmurs.</p><p>Alex raises a brow, and Michael is suddenly forced up onto his knees and into the far corner of the bed as Alex rolls onto his back, pulling the thin sheet up between his legs to drape across his hips, covering his groin and little else. He turns his head towards Michael on the pillow, tilting his chin up and catching the fading light of early evening streaming in through the cracks of the papers covering the Airstream’s windows.</p><p>“Go ahead.”</p><p>And Michael almost does. He almost reaches for his camera bag, hanging off a pair of bare nail heads on the foot of the trunk bed. Because Alex is <em> radiant </em>. Streams of soft light illuminate his pale lips and brown eyes, his long lashes casting dramatic shadows across his cheekbones. He’s grown his hair out a little and it sweeps across his temple, a lighter brown than Michael’s ever seen it, tinted from time well spent in the summer sun. His shoulders are broader than ever, hard muscle evident in his arms where they’re stretched behind his head and in his thigh where it’s spread open across the bed, leg crooked at the knee. And though he’s still slender, his form cutting a long, tapered line across the bed, he’s filled out. His body is absent the gaunt stretch of his leaner years, when he punished it with “clean” food and strenuous activity; craving absolution or maybe just distraction. He fixes Michael with clear, dark eyes burning steady and sure, blazing with promise and a challenge.</p><p>The sight of him reminds Michael of the original; the black and white image buried in an overpriced arthouse book hid inexpertly at the bottom of a messy drawer beneath the same mattress Alex now lounges on. Michael rarely looked at it, and definitely not for the purposes Isobel teasingly insinuated when she discovered it during a spring cleaning rampage of the Airstream. There’d been a time when he’d <em> needed </em> it, though, needed tangible proof that <em> this </em> Alex existed—unapologetic and unafraid and, <em> yeah okay </em> , sexy as hell; that he lived on a page, behind someone else’s lens, in flesh and blood and an undeniable spirit, and not just in Michael’s own memory or, worse, in his fantasy. Alex is spreading himself open and bare for Michael now, unashamed, presenting himself like a cat, with a subtly arched spine and a suggestive hand low on his belly, and Michael has a sudden urge to set each and every photograph of this Alex, <em> his </em> Alex on fire. He doesn’t want to acknowledge <em> any </em>version of this man that isn’t pulsing and alive under his fingertips.</p><p>“Baby,” he drawls, lowering himself to Alex’s side and running a palm up his chest with a feather-light touch, “I’m gonna take <em> so many </em> pictures of you, and you're not gonna be wearing a damn sheet." </p><p>He cups Alex’s cheek, runs his knuckles so gently across a sharp cheekbone and adds softly, "But not right now.”</p><p>“And why’s that?” Alex asks, smiling slow and lazy.</p><p>Michael leans in, brushing his tongue teasingly across the seam of Alex's lips before kissing him deep and sure. As he pulls away, Michael drops light kisses to Alex's nose, his forehead, the lids of his eyes, pausing with his lips pressed to the shell of Alex's ear, where he finally whispers, “Because I got the real thing.”</p>
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